Buying their voices — Federated Media stepped in it with their latest campaign, getting some of its bloggers to issue not so bon mots on behalf of a not so bon advertiser, Microsoft. — I tried to warn Federated when I adamantly turned down two prior similar campaigns …

A Follow Up — Well, we certainly stepped in it, judging by the "blogstorm" over Nick's post this past Friday. Over the past 24 hours scores of highly respected voices have chimed in on Microsoft's campaign, and I wanted to take the time to read as much of it as I could, really listen, and figure out where I came down in all of this.

Are Bloggers and Marketers Really Evil? — The blog world is trying to reinvent journalism, and finding that in many ways, they have to start back at the very beginning. Accusations have been flying this week over online advertorials with bloggers. It all seems to have started with this Valleywag post …

If you are going to sell your soul... There's another blogstorm about a new style of conversational advertising. — Let's back up a second. First, I wasn't approached for this advertising campaign. I've done similar ones, though, for Intel. Why didn't I get called out?

Comments on people-ready — Re the "people-ready" discussion. — There are a couple of reasons why the writers shouldn't have done what they did, and in all the comments already posted, no one has gotten to this. — First, Mike Arrington implies, in the title of his post, that everyone knows about this practice.

Why Is Nick Denton So "Old School"? — I have a lot of respect for Nick. He's built a great media business in Gawker Media using blogs as the platform. Valleywag is one of my "must reads" every day. My girls tell me that Jezebel, Gawker's new women's gossip blog, is fantastic.

Are advertorials "blog-ready"? — In the murky annals of "advertorial" — the blurring of clear lines between independent editorial matter and advertising — the dustup over Federated Media's campaign on behalf of Microsoft's "People Ready" slogan will rank as a minor affair.

Google Threatens to Close German Gmail Due to Local Law — According to information from Heise, Google warned that they might disable Gmail in Germany as last fallback should the German government maintain its position in regards to a newly passed law on record-keeping and supervision of internet traffic.

The Human Touch That May Loosen Google's Grip — ONCE upon a time, the most valuable secret formula in American business was Coca-Cola's. Today, it's Google's master algorithm. — In the search business, however, there's no rival to play the role of Pepsi.

Windows share as seen by Mac OS X Leopard — A friend of mine got his copy of Leopard and it looks like the Apple team dropped a funny easter egg when viewing a Windows share. — Look closely … Billy said about 2 hours ago : — I still think a pie graph of M$ market share to apples is funnier.

Three types of ideas - bad ones are often the best — Product ideas can be divided into three categories: — Obviously good ideas that are very difficult to implement. Efficient cold-fusion, flying cars, and a lot of other sci-fi ideas fall into this group.

Real Evil: ISP Inserted Advertising — Texas based ISP Redmoon has implemented software that hijacks pages being visited by their customers by placing Redmoon's own ads on these pages. — The technology is provided by NebuAD, which boasts that ISP delivered advertisements are an untapped source of revenue.

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